


Lucky

by Mortellana



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Axel & Roxas Friendship (Kingdom Hearts), Canon Compliant, Comfort/Angst, Mentioned Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Mentioned Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Roxas still calling Lea by Axel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20823992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortellana/pseuds/Mortellana
Summary: Day 25" I can't believe it's almost been a month since i've been back. Time really does fly...I'm so happy to be back with everyone, we can all live our own lives now!But i guess it's just... a bit weird not having Sora around. He deserves to be happy with his friends as much as i do. "A short exchange with Lea helping Roxas sort out some feelings about how his life has been going roughly a month after the events of kh3.





	Lucky

In a town vibrant with the summer peak sun, where cotton clouds are dipped in an array of warm hues and smeared in the tangerine canvas of the sky, the morning sunlight casts down strong shadows of the city's lively citizens over the brick tiled streets. Every building basked by the shine. The silky waving curtains of my solitary window, pulled by the warm breeze to brush against the outside walls.I casually sit on my bed and rest my arms on the sill to get a view of outside, like most days.  
Warm air envelops me like a soft blanket every morning, as soon as I open my eyes and turn in my pillow, but the sensation that hits me hard is something else. Every single time I wake, for at least one sudden moment, deep in my chest a spurt of an unfamiliar, yet welcome feeling.  
The feeling of... living here again.  
The feeling of simply...  
Existing again.  
Often times that feeling is followed by my mind trying to trick me into believing that I'm still waking up in the data world. Pulling me back, if only for a moment, in a good day. If it’s not one of those, the intrusive faux sensation snatches my train of thought, and I am only able to reclaim it after spending the whole day away from this room and with the others. Even then, it sticks to the back of my mind while i try to spend time with whoever is available. It's awful.  
I close my eyes and tell myself that this is a good day.  
The loud whistle of a train, circling in its tracks alongside the paved pathways, sound that fills my ears as I wonder, just how can it be that I still find myself so dumbfounded at this after nearly a month? It's been 25 days since, what did they call it- the keyblade war, and I still can't shake the feeling, like it all happened yesterday.  
I should already be used to this bedroom, the same one that was replicated for me in the fake twilight town, which is now mine alone. Instead of a blank room, with a single bed and the bare minimum, that might as well have no owner, no individuality, like back in the organization. Here, I wake up in a comfortable cushion, surrounded by knick knack filled shelves, with my books and video games scattered throughout the floor like fallen dominoes. The first light to appear in my vision, the one from my sea colored night lamp with fish silhouettes circling it like a merry go round, followed by the blast of natural light peeking from behind the curtains that I open above me. Instead of the pale lighting of the moon behind a wall sized glass panel that I'd sometimes reach out to, pretending to hold the celestial body close, trying to fathom all of the things they put in my head about it's significance.  
It's still hard to think of this place first when I need a mental image for the word "bedroom".  
It's also still difficult to make a mental image of "myself" that doesn't include a certain somebody.  
Ever since I've been back, new pages of the calendar slip onto the floorboards in what my perception tells me is way less than a whole day. Despite that, the minutes between feel like they linger for hours. Reminds me of the way my very first vacation day felt, like i should be actually doing something. Anything.  
But i can't find much to do.  
I know what I want to be doing. So why am I not doing it?  
The routine of going to the clock tower started to dull. It used to come so easily and instinctively to me...  
No, that's not quite what is happening. I have simply started to find myself not leaving the bed upon waking up. I scroll through stuff on my gummiphone, look at what people off world are up to, that kind of stuff. Then, before I know it, night pours down the sky and I need to go to sleep. I keep telling myself I'm just relaxing from the stressful thoughts that keep turning up.  
I try my best to shut down those thoughts when I'm around my friends.  
I'd feel guilty for not enjoying my time with them.  
The feeling stops being inescapable, and, for those moments, turns into a mere layer of static crawling below my skin.  
Just two days ago, Xion came over for one of our sleepovers, having her around always soothes my nerves. I think she's brought ice cream for us to eat here more times than we've had some at the tower lately. The greasy, empty pot of ice cream is still sitting on my desk, in fact. Ice cream that isn't frozen and on a stick kind of blew our minds at first, Xion stuck around to discover what it was like as well after bringing me it at Axel's request.  
She said "Axel told me that this is to 'lift up your spirits.” and we spent a lot of our conversation trying to figure out what he meant by that. I still don't get why he suddenly would go through the trouble of finding me one of these instead of a good old popsicle, though.  
Then, after she left the next day, the static dissipated to fill the silence once again.  
Haven't yet had any weird dreams either. Now the stillness of slumber is what brings me solace, and the static and memories course through my brain only when I'm up. It's even somewhat funny to think about.  
For a second, there's the disheartening sensation of the edges of my mouth forming a tiny smile, only for it to crumble on the next.  
Why does he still...  
Just beyond my door, I can suddenly hear footsteps nearing in from the hallway. I feel a familiar rhythm of steps upon the floorboards, somehow I can tell it's Axel.  
It is unusual for him not to bring Isa along these days.  
He stalls to get in, which leaves me with a moment to turn around in my sheets to face the door. Landing my feet outside the bed only grounds myself in anticipation. It’s like he froze right when he grabbed the doorknob, for whatever reason.  
I know you're there, don’t try to startle me.  
More than enough time for me to say that aloud passes me by.  
I flick my sight away from the floor and at his direction, a creaking noise accompanies him as he finally appears through the door frame. Instead of exchanging looks and greeting first, I fleetingly notice the back of his hand swiftly grazing his cheek. He pulls it all the way around his head, playing it off as if he were just fixing stray strands of his wild hair.  
Is he crying again?  
“Axel!” My shout wasn’t meant to be so abrasive, but my annoyance spoke louder than my voice alone could. It whisks Axel’s head away from facing the door sliding to a close by his hand. As soon as he looks at me, I presuppose that my irritation is plastered all over my face.  
“…I didn’t even say anything yet!” Hands outstretched into the air, reacting like he’d been called out for some sort of infraction. He gestures them as he speaks, as if it’d help the words out. “Wanna know how I pictured this going? ‘Oh, hi there, Roxas.’ ‘Why hello, best friend, been a while, huh?’”  
He pouts, expecting a reaction from me, but settling down to only crossing his arms.  
Unamused, I stare holes into his hand.  
Try to make it as noticeable as possible.  
Axel sways and rests his hands on his hips, now a bit set off. “What’re you looking at me like that for?”  
It prompts him to piece it together at last. He looks at his right hand wide eyed, like my look made him self-aware enough to feel the drying particles of tears, and then back at me.  
"Hey, look i wasn't-" The sound of his voice is clearly the one he uses when making excuses.  
I don't wanna hear it.  
"You've gotta cut that out! I can't stand to see you cry..." It gives me heartache. At first it was fine, made sense. But so much time has passed since the occasion to be shedding tears of joy, that they stopped giving me that impression. I see the split second when he tears up, and it only makes me think of the ones that once carried grief.  
He finds a spot on the wall near me to lean against.  
"Hey, i'm just making good use of the heart that i do indeed have!"  
Softening his never actually angry expression to begin with, Axel speaks flippantly.  
"Don't tell me you're also gonna start giving me a hard time about being a crybaby. Already got someone with that job."  
A breath. I give my best shot at regulating the sound of my voice. However, the act only backtracked the amount I naturally seemed to calm down. The brashness gradually came back to permeate my speech after the conscious acknowledgement of it.  
"I know... But seriously! It makes me feel bad to see any of you guys cry like that. Besides, I- I'm--"  
"I'm not going anywhere."  
My mouth hangs open, words barred from flowing. Axel already stole the line. Shooting it back at me, sharp like a rebuttal.  
A realization washes over me, chest feeling a sudden sting and teeth gritting in relapse.  
He crosses his arms, and continues.  
"Relax, I already got it memorized. You're not vanishing on me again anytime soon, thankfully."  
I pull my eyes away from his gaze, staring now at the other side of the room.  
How...  
How many times have I repeated myself like that?  
Often enough for him to be fed up with, apparently.  
I grab my pillow. The half of me that wants to thrown the cushion at him clawing at the other dichotomy, the one that perseveres, that only wants to keep clinging to it. My chin and arms sink in the soft fabric, tightly embracing the pillow in my low energy inadvertently hides a bit of my face.  
"What did you come here for?"  
He raises an eyebrow, and shrugs.  
"Do I need a cut out motive? I just came by here to see how you're doing."  
"Really?"  
I have trouble believing him sometimes still, it's always the minor things like this that get my head all wrapped up in suspicion. I know there's no good reason to, it's not like I doubt he's my friend, not for one second.  
At the pace our lives are currently going, I just don't understand what to do with this much free time. Time that we can't always share together. Time that any of us can be up to anything, away from the eyes of one other.  
I guess a piece of me doesn't trust him with that time still.  
"Yes, Roxas, really. I'm just curious to know how my best bud is doin', that's all."  
I still find the need to insist. I get the feeling that Xion let him know about the stuff we talked about. A certain touchy subject came up many times with her, but it seemed to never go anywhere.  
"No, that's not all there is to it, I just know! Quit hiding stuff from me!"  
"I'm not _hiding_ anything from you!!..."  
He sits down on the mattress beside me, cross armed, looking like an offended little child.  
"...I only figured Xion had let you know that we were kinda gossiping about you..."  
I spurt up, nearly standing up from my seat and finally embracing the urge of hurling the pillow at him.  
"I KNEW IT!"  
Axel jumps up too in response, opening his arms in a wide gesture after shoving the pillow onto the floor.  
"And I MEANT IT! Look, me and Xion we're _worried_ about you."  
_'You? Worried?'_  
Sparks short circuit in my head, like firecrackers igniting through the static in the air. The faint memory resurfaced for a brief instant, leaving behind fodder for thought about as ephemerally. I only barely keep myself from the impulse of putting my hands to my aching temples. Don’t want to alarm Axel even more, so i only let out a groan.  
I don't want to think hard about that stuff.  
I fling my back to fall upon the surface of the bed, and immediately try not make this all about how I'm feeling.  
"You guys really shouldn't. Look, I'm fine-"  
"You haven't shown up to have ice cream, Roxas. Ice cream." That's a hyperbolic way of saying that. " It's hard to imagine you can function without the stuff, much less decline some because you're 'fine'!"  
I am fine, though.  
...Right?  
"_Maybe_ YOU worry too much! Everything is fine now! It's been like 25 days, why do you still tear up every time you see me and Xion?! We're supposed to be happy now!" It can't last. " _I_ am supposed to be happy now..."  
Wait, why is my vision getting misty, then?  
I avert my eyes from Axel again. The corner of my vision still sees his hand massaging his neck, I probably made him feel awkward now.  
"I don't need to tell you that happy tears are a thing, Roxas. Heh, guess I can't help it even after so much ice cream..."  
A tense pause.  
"...Doesn't quite sound like it's me you're having a problem with, though."  
A sigh escapes me.  
"...Of course it's not you..."  
I'm not crying. I'm not. Reflexively curling up into a ball to hide.  
"So you know what it is you have a problem with."  
My eyes dart to him, then back at my folded arms, back and forth. Unsure of whether I really want to say this out loud or not. I'm not afraid of my best friend knowing about it, I just...  
...Don't wanna hear it myself.  
I press my eyelids to help the words out.  
"...It just doesn't make any sense. Everything should be fine now. I should feel fine now."  
I reopen my eyes, inspecting the black and white fabric of my bracelet, occupying myself with a mindless task.  
Axel was about to speak again when I gather more words from a cloud of thought. They spill out of my lungs before I fully register that I might interrupt him.  
"...Sora...he tried his best to be there for me... Now suddenly we're apart. -And I thought that would be great! Not that long ago, I didn't want anything more than to just- _make_ him disappear myself! But…aargh--" Shaking my head, I bring my hands up to face and grit my teeth. My hair bangs prickling my fingers.  
"...I miss him. I wanted, so badly, to just... talk to him. Talk like we are just two normal guys. I thought that now both of us could talk, coexist, be friends even. That's what should have happened. Then the rug got pulled again, and... now I just happen to be..."  
I gulp back the tears i am still fighting off.  
Thinking back to that moment, when i returned to Sora’s heart, makes me shudder.  
The words scrape out of my throat.  
"... just happen to be the _lucky_ one."  
Such a heavy word for me, yet Axel doesn’t pick up on that fact. He doesn’t know about it.  
I was completely alone back there.  
What if Sora is feeling the exact same pain right now?  
The sun's radiance rears from the window behind. Rays that reach my bare skin burn through the stillness that befell the room.  
Slouched over my knees and beginning to scratch the back of my hand. An unresting, shaking hand, adorned by a bracelet. My neck is staggered, if I tried moving it to look Axel in the eye I am afraid I'd start to hear gears creak. So, instead, I keep my stare toward the door he had arrived through.  
Axel's hand falls on my shoulder.  
"...Look, Roxas, the truth is that I don't have the slightest idea of what that must be like…” He even looks a bit embarrassed as he says this, massaging the back of his neck. “Which leads me to asking, why didn't you tell Xion this? She would have way more room to speak on this than I do."  
"I dunno."  
Why didn't I? Whenever the subject comes up with her, she just feeds in to the belief everybody else seems to share, that he'll be back in some time and all will be fine. Knowing Sora, they're probably not too far off the mark, but that doesn't mean it will all be fine.  
"Well... listen, it'll be alright. That one can't stay away for long, even I can tell."  
There it is again.  
A seething feeling bursts in my chest, this time I can't just pretend to agree with it. My movements align with how erratic I suddenly feel.  
"It's like...I am just waiting for things to go wrong all over again!"  
I can't help raising my voice, as i look Axel in the eye.  
I mean, Naminé and I got bodies to live in, I finally went to the beach with everybody, I brought Xion back, I got my very own place to sleep at night, I have Axel right here still being my friend.  
...Yet, I can't bring myself to give any credibility to this idea that it will all last.  
It's driving me crazy to think about all this. My head perpetually blinking with fear that the next day I can wake up and find myself, not even back at the fake twilight town, but in an unfamiliar future that could bring any kind of new misfortune my way.  
Sharp breathing starts taking over, and i start curling back into a ball.  
"...I just don't want us to be torn apart again..."  
Only after hearing my own feeble voice get squeezed out that I notice the tears got the best of me.  
My eyes press shut, as if it would help block out my thoughts.  
Losing my sight forces me to focus on every twitch jolting through my body, each and every one, intrusive and out of my control, as small as may be.  
Hair slanted onto my knees, strands glued to the salty water in my face.  
I'm such a mess.  
A doleful air sits around us for a bit, and for a while that felt much longer than it should. A consoling hand reaches around me to hold on to my right shoulder, followed by Axel's voice.  
"I'm right with you, about things feeling like they could start derailing again at any moment... I think, it's a completely normal way to be feeling. But listen when I say, even if things do get bad again, they're never going to be just like before. You're _never_ going to be anything other than your own person again. We're _never_ forgetting Xion again." His serious tone is enough to earn him an uncharacteristically stern look to his face. He clearly hated all of that happening as well.”...It can only go up from there, right?”  
He sounds so reassuring on that last bit, reminds me of when I'd ask about the simplest things and he'd give advice without a shadow of doubt on his mind. Makes me wary to reply with voice cracks, failing to mask the turmoil that those prospects cause in my heart.  
My mind buzzes with words for a moment, until I stop covering my face and let them out.  
"...Can you promise we'll never have to fight again? Like... actually _fight_ fight? "  
His eyes turn off to the side, I'm sure he dug up unpleasant memories from that moment alone. Not that his response had any hesitation in it.  
"That's behind us too, buddy."  
The response puts me at ease somehow, as if I imagined it could go any other way.  
One last poignant sniffle resounds, as I clean my airways and try to regain any sense of composure. Forcefully I blink the tears away, raising my chin up to glance at a warmly lit spot in the ceiling.  
"Heh..."  
I slick back down onto the window wall, embracing myself and leaning on Axel. He doesn’t let go of me, trying to offer comfort.  
Time passes us by, with us simply being like that.  
It's good to have a shoulder to cry on again. Someone to tell me what I need to hear, instead of only being able to go round my own pessimistic thoughts over and over.  
"Besides, Roxas, I thought you weren't going anywhere?"  
His voice unexpectedly picks up, shedding the heavy tone into a more pleasant teasing one.  
I snort, running my wrists along my face to pick off the nearly dried streams of tears while laughing. Was hoping he'd find something to joke about in all of this.  
"You know, you've got to cut that out. I can't stand to see you cry."  
He copies the way i acted earlier, except that he makes it look silly.  
"Oh, Shut up! That’s so not what i’m like."  
Laughter bit by bit makes me think about the bad stuff less and less.  
It doesn’t really solve much, but it all becomes more bearable.  
Reminds me that, even if it doesn’t last, it can still make all the difference in this or any world. I know it made all the difference in my heart.  
I’m sure Sora is clinging onto that as well.

After all, we're both lucky to even have moments such as this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this through to the end!  
Any feedback is more than welcome, this is the first piece of my writing i post and i want to improve.


End file.
